"My own still shadow-world" : melancholy and feminine intermediacy in Charlotte Brontë's Villette

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Date
2007-07-10Author
Machuca, Daniela
Type
ThesisDegree Level
MastersMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Lucy Snowe, the heroine of Villette, Charlotte Brontë’s final novel, is in constant conflict with the dichotomies of patriarchal culture. As she is perpetually torn between the opposing forces of patriarchy, Lucy Snowe inhabits what she calls her own “still shadow-world” (Brontë164). This thesis explains the nature of the intermediate space Lucy Snowe occupies and examines its repercussions on her mental state. Chapter One theorizes the effect of patriarchal dichotomies on Lucy Snowe to demonstrate that her mental conflict has its roots in the female experience of the opposition between nature and culture. Chapter Two’s analysis of the nineteenth-century medical understanding of madness shows that Lucy Snowe’s melancholy is a symptom of the intermediacy created by conflicting patriarchal expectations. Chapter Three compares Lucy Snowe to the female figure in patriarchal master narratives, which draws attention to the serious consequences of patriarchal culture on women and demonstrates that Lucy is representative of women in conflict with patriarchal expectations. Ultimately, as part of Charlotte Brontë’s endeavor to represent “truth” rather than “reality,” Villette challenges patriarchal expectations of women and presents a different vision of womanhood.
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)Department
EnglishProgram
EnglishSupervisor
Clark, HilaryCommittee
Vargo, Lisa; Stephanson, Raymond A.; Roy, Wendy; Farthing, GeraldCopyright Date
July 2007Subject
gender
reason
imagination
insanity
female artist
binary
intermediacy
patriarchy
Villette
Lucy Snowe
Charlotte Bronte
madness
melancholy
nature
culture
repression
Victorian